Barrie Kosky's Ring cycle reaches its fiery conclusion at Covent Garden, with Antonio Pappano conducting the orchestra he led for two decades.
Barrie Kosky’s Ring cycle for the Royal Opera reaches its last opera, Götterdämmerung, at the Royal Opera House in Covent Garden from Thursday 21 January to Sunday 7 February 2027. Antonio Pappano conducts.
The Ring is four operas long. It runs to 15 hours, took Wagner 26 years to write, and has a theatre built to hold it. He started with the death of Siegfried and wrote backwards, adding each earlier opera to explain the last.
Götterdämmerung brings together gods, a ring made from stolen gold and a hero who cannot be frightened and is easy to deceive. It ends in a fire that takes the whole world with it.
At Bayreuth in 1876, Wagner set the convention of performing the four operas over a week, and it has held since.
Kosky is the first director to stage a complete Ring at this house since Keith Warner, 20 years ago. His cycle has been staged one opera a year since Das Rheingold.
Pappano is the house’s conductor laureate and ran its music for two decades. The cast for this final instalment includes Elisabet Strid, Andreas Schager and Mika Kares.